Help with 5 year old that won't stop attacking me

[aspenleaves]

So my main issue here is that we are going through a rough phase (both my 5 year old dd and myself) and I cannot handle it! She has always been a hitter which throughout our last 4 years together we have worked on and she finally stopped hitting me at like 3.5 years old. A combo of reasoning, bringing her to her room and consistency finally prevailed.

Now I am in my 3rdish month of being attacked both verbally and physically. I have tried the reasoning and consistency... my patience is gone and I am getting hurt! I am done I tell you. Now I just want to explode and I yell and drag her to her room screaming stop attacking me!!!!! Okay, so I don't usually do this and so she is not 'modeling' what she sees here.... this is just how she reacts now.

I know the make sure she isn't tired or hungry or stressed thing, but to tell you the truth I can head all of these off the best I can and she will still react this way when triggered. I need some strategy that will work both for me and my anger and to get it across to her that SHE MAY NOT HIT ME AND CALL ME NAMES!

The event that spawned this post is a good example. I go into where she and her little friend is playing (she is already frustrated becasue the playdate is not going well) and I say okay, so and so's mom is on her way to pick them up so what is the last thing you want to play.... she looks at me and yells "your stupid'. I say, 'remember we don't speak disrespectfully to each other, so please don't say that to me'. We go about playing for a few minutes but soon no matter what I do (example hold the doll wrong) she physically attackes me screaming "your stupid I don't want to play.... blah, blah, blah". Well I take her by the hand and say on the way to the bedroom that she needs to gain control of her body and not speak disrespectfully and when she is ready to do those two things she may come out of her room. And she also knows that I will stay in her room with her unless she continues her tirade....

Anyway, the whole thing is a mess... she continues to scream and tantrum and not stay in her room.... she is now throwing things at her giant mirror in her room that I have now taken down and she is freaked about that. I ended up screaming at her to stop calling me names... I am falling apart. I can't stand this behavior anymore.

[North_Of_60]

Originally Posted by aspenleaves

I say okay, so and so's mom is on her way to pick them up so what is the last thing you want to play.... she looks at me and yells "your stupidI say, 'remember we don't speak disrespectfully to each other, so please don't say that to me.

I would stop saying, and start doing. It's tough because the friend is there and it would be hard to do anything without putting the innocent by-stander in the middle of it, but I wouldn't "warn" someone not speak disrespectfully (not even disrespectfully, that was MEAN) when they clearly know it's a mean thing to say.

You have two things to teach her - 1.) that calling other people names is mean and if you do it, it's going to damage the relationship and 2.) what to do when people call HER names, and how to handle not being treated nicely.

In our house, when we're not treatedly nicely (by anyone!, even I have my bad days) we remove ourselves from the situation first and foremost. You need oxygen and a spark to start a fire, so get rid of the oxygen and you can't start a fire. It gives the other party a chance to cool off so things don't escalate, and first and foremost, it sends the message to The Spark that you will not be around a person who doesn't treat you nicely.

I'm of the opinion that everytime we launch into the "that's not now how we do things..." speach when someone is mean it doesn't send a clear enough message. That's not to say I don't explain certain things or give ample opportunity for her (my daughter) to do the right thing or have forgiveness for her age typical lack of control, because I do. But in the case of being deliberately malicious, there is is no pass go and collect 200 dollars. There is an instance consequence for the behavior, and 99.99% of all the people I have ever met in my entire life have all agreed - it's not fun hanging around a person who is maliciously mean. So that's the consequence. You're mean? You spend time alone.

I know some people call this a "withholding of affection", and you're darn toot'in it is! Who wants to be affectionate to people who call you stupid? It's not something I tolerate, it's not something I would want my daughter to think SHE has to tolerate, and I cringe at the kind of person I'd be creating by feeding into that kind of behavior.

There are few things in our house that are grounds for instant action, but being maliciously mean is one of them.

Long story short.. I wouldn't drag her to her room kicking and screaming, because that's just a HUGE escalation of things and is going to make it harder to deal with in the long run. I would ask for her to leave the room, and if she didn't, I'd get up and leave myself. Wait for her to calm down and approach her, and if she follows you wait until she's calmed down somewhat before trying to tackle the situation. Don't hesitate to say why you're leaving though "I don't want to be around you when you when you treat me that way". (And in the case of the friend, I'd have started to pack up the toys while explaining that the behavior is unacceptable and no wants to be around it. Luckily the other kid's mom was on her way over, so just wrap it up, but I certainly would not have given an empty warning/lecture and then continued to allow her to play.)

[aspenleaves]

Hey thanks for your reply.... it helps to read all these posts too as so much of it can give insight into this journey... thanks again

[BellinghamCrunchie]

I tend to pay more attention to identifying and modifying the antecedents rather than figuring out consequences to apply after a behavior has occurred. Especially if a behavior is frequent enough that it's become a significant problem.

The trouble with consequences is that you often have to keep increasing the intensity of the consequence as the child learns to tolerate the consequence, find ways to make the consequence as unpleasant for you as it is for them, or wiggle out of the consequence completely.

You only gave one example, but in that example, it looked like your DD had trouble with that transition. You might look at other things that cause your DD to escalate (keep written documentation if necessary) and see if you can find patterns. Are transitions always hard for her? If so, you could target that area specifically, even setting up some transitions on purpose to help her learn transitioning skills.

Once you've identified patterns to her escalations, you could set up a positive program to help her through the triggers. So, for example, instead of only using negative consequences (going to her room/time out) you could also implement strong positive consequences for successfully negotiating a transition. You could also set up the environment to support successful transitioning.

In the situation you mentioned, reminding her that the playdate was going to end soon and that she should choose one more thing to do before the end works well for many children but not for your DD, so you could look at modifying that. She might need more time to process the transition, or she might need less. Or you could set up a strongly-preferred activity that comes after the playdate, so that she has something positive to turn her attention to ("After your friend leaves, we are going to bake chocolate chip cookies."). Or perhaps she needs more empathy and sympathy with the transition. "I see that its hard to say goodbye. Maybe we can think of something to help make saying goodbye easier" and maybe you could get the child's parent to engage in a toy trading goodbye ritual, for example. It worked well for my DD to trade a toy with her friend Jonathan when he had to leave. The toy-trading served two purposes: it was exciting to have a new toy to borrow, and it symbolized that Jonathan would be coming back over again to get the toy back. Another positive approach you could use is a sticker chart for transitions... if she can say goodbye without becoming aggressive or rude, she can put a sticker on her chart, and later trade the stickers for a fun activity or item.

Anyway, the key is finding what the triggers are, and then setting up a positive program to coach her through successfully. You'll still have problematic behavior to deal with, especially at first, but the problematic behavior should become less and less frequent.